NOAA Merged Land Ocean Global Surface Temperature Analysis (NOAAGlobalTemp)

Annual Mean Anomaly Time Series and Trends for 1995–2014: Version 4.0.0 versus Version 3.5.4

The NOAA Merged Land Ocean Global Surface Temperature Analysis Dataset (NOAAGlobalTemp) is a merged land–ocean surface temperature analysis (formerly known as MLOST). It is a spatially gridded (5° × 5°) global surface temperature dataset, with monthly resolution from January 1880 to present. We combine a global sea surface (water) temperature (SST) dataset with a global land surface air temperature dataset into this merged dataset of both the Earth’s land and ocean surface temperatures, currently as version v4.0.1. The SST dataset is the Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature (ERSST) version 4.0. The land surface air temperature dataset is similar to ERSST but uses data from the Global Historical Climatology Network Monthly (GHCN-M) database, version 3.3.0.

We provide the NOAAGlobalTemp dataset as temperature anomalies, relative to a 1971–2000 monthly climatology, following the World Meteorological Organization convention. The anomalies and error fields are available from the FTP area and the Global Temperature and Precipitation Maps page.

A peer-reviewed paper, "Improvements to NOAA's Historical Merged Land–Ocean Surface Temperature Analysis (1880–2006)," describes the NOAAGlobalTemp processing principles and procedures. The current version (NOAAGlobalTemp v4.0.1) uses ERSST v4.0, which includes only in situ SST data, for historical consistency. Data for the previous month are now available on the third day of the current month.

Data Access

• Global Gridded 5° × 5° Data
  Monthly data in both FORTRAN IEEE binary and ASCII text formats
• ASCII Time Series
  Monthly and annual land–ocean temperature time series are available from 1880 to present for several zonal bands
• Climate at a Glance
  This interactive tool provides global charts and graphics using NOAAGlobalTemp data.

References

Smith, T.M., R.W. Reynolds, T.C. Peterson, and J. Lawrimore, 2008: Improvements to NOAA's historical merged land–ocean surface temperatures analysis (1880–2006); Journal of Climate, 21, 2283–2296, doi:10.1175/2007JCLI2100.1.

Vose, R.S., D. Arndt, V.F. Banzon, D.R. Easterling, B. Gleason, B. Huang, E. Kearns, J.H. Lawrimore, M.J. Menne, T.C. Peterson, R.W. Reynolds, T.M. Smith, C.N. Williams, Jr., and D.L. Wuertz, 2012: NOAA's merged land-ocean surface temperature analysis. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 93, 1677–1685, doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00241.1.

Contact Information

Huai-Min Zhang
huai-min.zhang@noaa.gov

Boyin Huang
boyin.huang@noaa.gov

Tom Smith
tom.smith@noaa.gov

Ron Ray
ron.ray@noaa.gov